Run it back? Seahawks want to ‘run it forward’ as defending Super Bowl champs return mostly same roster. – The Boston Globe
“The message was, it was cool that we did what we did last year — there’s banners and trophies and stuff, and we should be proud of that,” Macdonald said. “But we want to leave room to grow and evolve and become a different, better version of what we were.”
Both the Seahawks and Patriots are talking about how different Wednesday’s game will be from the Seahawks’ 29-13 victory in the Super Bowl. But only one team is living it.
The Patriots will have 24 new players on the 53-man roster, with six new starters, led by receivers A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs. The Seahawks, though, are mostly running it back, as much as they may not want to admit it.
They return 20 of 22 starters from the Super Bowl (10 on each side) plus all three specialists. They lost Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker, starting safety Coby Bryant, and offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak to the Raiders coaching gig.
Otherwise, this is almost exactly the same Seahawks team — roster and coaching staff — that went 17-3 and won its second Lombardi Trophy.
The Seahawks only have four rookies and two new free agents on the roster, and they’re all backups, except for first-round running back Jadarian Price. Seattle instead spent its summer re-signing all of its top players, awarding $241 million guaranteed to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Leonard Williams, Devon Witherspoon, Charles Cross, Rashid Shaheed, and Derick Hall.
The biggest change comes all the way at the top, with the family of former owner Paul Allen selling the team for $9.6 billion last month to Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla.
“It meant a lot to keep a lot of the core guys intact,” said Witherspoon, who was the NFL’s highest-paid cornerback at $33 million per year before Christian Gonzalez signed his extension. “It’s easy to keep everything going when ak majority of the guys you had before are still here.”
The Seahawks were the featured team on HBO’s Hard Knocks this training camp, which Macdonald said helped them move past the Super Bowl win.
“The way I’ve tried to frame it to our team was, it forces us to be us,” he said. “It kind of forced our hand for us to focus on being authentic to who we are, rather than, ‘OK, we’re defending champs.’ It forced us to kind of lock in, you know?”
Despite blowing out the Patriots in February, the Seahawks view Wednesday’s rematch as a challenge. The Patriots have all those new faces from seven months ago, particularly on offense, and Week 1 is always tricky due to the lack of game film.
The Patriots also didn’t play their starters in the preseason, leaving the Seahawks guessing as to how they will be attacked.
They certainly aren’t taking the Patriots lightly, and have a lot of respect for Drake Maye, last year’s MVP runner-up.
“Definitely [expecting] a better version of himself,” Macdonald said. “He’s going from a borderline MVP player to another level. So just another reason for us to be on ourselves on how we rush, and all the things you got to be able to do to be able to stop an offense with that type of caliber player.”
The Seahawks’ secondary blanketed the Patriots receivers in the Super Bowl, with Stefon Diggs catching three passes for 37 yards, and Kayshon Boutte just one for 21. Witherspoon said he is looking forward to the challenge of the Patriots new receivers, having never faced Brown in a game, and Doubs only once, two years ago.
“You know, they’re great receivers. They win one-on-ones, they can get off press, they can make great contested catches down the field,” Witherspoon said. “They’re everything you’re looking for in the receiver. We just got to go out there and handle our business better than they handle their business. And that comes down to that.”
The Seahawks will take one last look backward Wednesday night when they raise their second Super Bowl banner. Then it’s all business and running it forward to 2026.
“We’re going to be juiced, and the banner drops, and it’s going be a cool moment. The guys earned that,” Macdonald said. “I think it’s a fair ask to say, ‘Let’s enjoy that moment,’ to be proud of that team and what they did, understand what it took to get that moment.
“But now we have to move forward and kind of recenter and go back and go focus on what we need to do. So, I’m excited for that, but there’s a lot of work to be done between now and then.”
Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com.